ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the impact of bodies of theory that initially developed within Pacific archaeology but have greatly influenced areas outside of the region. This means exploring the extent to which ‘island archaeology’ reflects the central concerns of the archaeology of the insular Pacific. Island archaeology can be said to differ from archaeology simply undertaken on islands, in that its practitioners view insular contexts as uniquely productive places in which to study the generalities and specificities of human behaviour by virtue of the constraints imposed on human populations due to insularity. The Pacific is a prodigious oceanic space, containing some of the most isolated fragments of land on the planet. The influence of Pacific theory as regards the island-laboratory simile on Caribbean island archaeology has been more complex – rather than an early cross-fertilisation of ideas, the Caribbean has arguably arrived late to global island archaeology.
